Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Leo says that is a reasonable thing to want to do, but Hollywood doesn't want anyone to have access to that pure digital signal. DirecTV and DISH scramble and encode the signal which leaves users with only one choice - the analog hole.

Chris will have to connect the DVR to a video capture card on his computer. Then he can play back the shows and record them into the computer. This is called the "analog hole".

Leo says that he fears that the iPhone 5 may be a failure because it's essentially playing catch up to last year's Android models with speed and screen size. The new 19 pin connector also may be a disaster because of how much third party accessories it'll break.

Leo advises people to look at Android at this point. Then again, there's a new Android phone every few weeks and that can be maddening.

Bill would like a Wi-Fi Radio that will keep it's settings when he moves it from room to room. Leo likes the Mondo by Grace. It has a large LCD screen, supports Pandora, iHeartRadio, Receiva, and has a battery backup so it keeps its settings. It costs about $200.

Another option is the C Crane WiFi Radio which is a little cheaper at $150. The gold standard, though, is Sonos, which supports Amazon Cloud player, Sansa, and Receiva. Each room could play different stations, or he can put in party mode. It is rather pricey, however.

He's also concerned about having to go through Receiva on these radios. Leo says he doesn't have to use that, and even if something were to happen to that directory, the Wi-Fi radio manufacturer could simply push out an update to use something else.

Audience QuestionsHour 2

Solid State Drives are great because they don't have the drive latency that spinning disk drives have. They are random access, meaning they don't rely on a head locating data on a disk. They also have no moving parts so they are less likely to break. This makes them much faster than the spinning hard drives.

Before he upgrades to SSD though, he should check to make sure he has hardware to take advantage of it. It could be that the data busses are slow, and the data can't be transferred into memory as fast. If he has SATA 3 or SATA 6, he'll be able to take advantage of the faster speed. Earlier SATA or IDE connectors may not allow for much of a boost in performance.

Then before he buys the SSD, he should visit PCPerspective's SSD Decoder for what SSD drives are best in performance. The current standard is a SanForce controller. OCZ is the best right now. Leo recommends getting a smaller SSD as a boot drive and rely on a bigger hard drive for data.

Zack is also thinking of getting an Asus Zenbook ultrabook. Leo says he just got his and it's gorgeous! Has an SSD drive and is a fantastic computer.

Frank has Microsoft Security Essentials on his computer, but when he boots up, something turns off his software firewall. Leo says that's odd because Microsoft Security Essentials turns on the firewall by default when installed. The firewall can offer exceptions, and it may be that Frank allowed something to go through. Leo also says that malware may be the culprit here as the first thing that hackers usually do with malware is turn off the firewall and make it difficult to navigate to an antivirus software site.

One thing Frank can do is run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MRT). It gets updated pretty regularly and runs by clicking START>>RUN, type "MRT" and enter. Select "full scan," and it'll scan and remove any malware it finds. Frank can also go to ESET.com and select the Online Scanner option. It'll run an online scan for a "second opinion." If all that comes up clean, then there may be a settings issue with Frank's firewall. Leo also advises removing and reinstalling Microsoft Security Essentials.

From the Chatroom: NetSupport DNA will block all firewall activity. But Leo says that's unlikely because that's an IT selection.

They're AKG K240s and they're very popular in radio stations and recording studios. They're not only very accurate, but they're extremely comfortable to wear. When he travels, he uses Etymotics In Ear Monitors. They have great models for kids, too.

Leo would first edit the video in iMovie. In there, he can remove the sound track and remix it with music. When he exports the video, he should check the export settings to make sure it's set to export at the highest quality. Josh, in the chatroom says it's easy to "squish the wind noise" by using the equalizer and cutting it by 6DB. That'll lower the wind noise without eliminating the rest of the sound track.

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Zane has been looking at the SONY Alpha 65 and wants to know what Leo thinks. Leo says that he doesn't use Sony cameras, he's biased towards Canon and Nikon when it comes to DSLRs. But he hears that the Alpha series gets great reviews. He recommends going to DPReview.com to check out their reviews. A Nikon D3200 would be cheaper and he could add a few lenses for the same price.

One thing to remember when buying a DSLR is that you're buying more of a system, with the lenses being most important. Leo says there's no reason not to buy a Sony camera, though. As far as SD cards go, he should get the fastest card that the camera will support. Leo buys class 10. If he has a faster card, his camera will be able to take more pictures in burst mode, and will be more likely to handle high-defintion recording.

Jerry has an anti virus utility called Vipre, but he still keeps getting viruses. Leo says Vipre isn't very good and recommends ESET Nod 32 for Windows. He should first take Vipre off, and then install NOD32. It's the best security software Leo knows of (Disclaimer: ESET is a sponsor). The best free AVS is Microsoft's Security Essentials.

Leo suggest going to Roku-Channels.com, the unofficial Roku database. It has over 1,000 hidden channels that he can add to his Roku Box. Local TV stations simply aren't available, though, unless he uses Areo TV, which is only in New York at the moment. Of course, just using a UHF antenna will give him uncompressed local HDTV.

Leo says it really depends on how the disc was burned. It's likely the disc has gone bad. There are two ways a disc can be burned. One is to burn the whole thing and finalize it, meaning it can't be altered later. The other is using UDF, meaning he would be able to add to it later. He would need a special driver to read that, and he'd have to finalize that disc before it could be read by other computers.

Since he burned it using Windows Photo utilty, that's probably not the case. If Bob copied the photos to DVD and then deleted the originals, it was inevitable that he'd lose them at some point. DVDs can, and often do, go bad.

It's always best to use a 3-2-1 backup strategy ... three backups, using two formats, and one off site. Check out DPBestFlow.org for more tips on digital asset management.

Mike's only computer is his Droid X Smartphone and he hates it. He'd like to replace it, and he says he could get a feature phone and a tablet instead. If he had Wi-Fi, Leo would recommend picking up the Google Nexus 7, it's $200, but he would need WiFi.

He also heard of a $50 unlimited 3G data plan. Leo says it's probably through Virgin Mobile using their MiFi connector. Leo likes that and then he could get the Nexus 7 because he'd have a Wi-Fi connection.

This Week in Tech News

Tired of the intrusion into his privacy, Leo decided to quit Facebook last night. Leo says that when Facebook users take quizes on Facebook, the quiz maker gets access to ALL your personal information, as well as the information of your friends - without THEIR consent. And Leo says Facebook refuses to do anything about it.

Even worse, while Facebook assures members that the information won't be used in violation of Facebook's privacy policy, a whistle blower from the company said that is exactly what happened with Caimbridge Analytica. When the story came out, Facebook quickly banned the company in an attempt to get ahead of the bad news. Facebook has also given users the option to delete their personal data without having to cancel their account.

But this was the last straw for Leo, and he's out of there. But should he leave Twitter and Google as well? Google is a lot harder.

This week, Leo got the Samsung Galaxy S9 and it's not only got one of the best cameras ever, but DxOMark says the screen is practically perfect in every way. Leo also says he's pleased that the fingerprint reader was finally put in the right place. But what's strange for him is that there's not much difference between the Galaxy S9 and the Note 8. Maybe a faster processor and slightly smaller, but they're practically the same.

Leo also got a new HP Envy X2, which is the first laptop to run on an ARM processor. But even then, it's still running on Windows 10S.. That means it only runs 32 bit programs and only from the Windows app store. It has 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot. It also weighs a pound and a half and fantastic battery life. HP says 22 hours, which means about 11 hours in reality. But Leo says he's getting more like 15-16 hours. Amazing. And it has LTE, all you need to do is put in a Google Fi SIM and Bob's your uncle. But at $1000, it's not cheap. And Leo says it's really SLOW. Chrome is also really slow on it.
Leo's recommendation ... there's a lot to like, but he wouldn't recommend buying it.

Magic Leap has been a company that's been all hype and no action for years, despite all of the great demos they have on their website. Now the company says it's making a prototype that looks like welder's glasses for augmented reality. This means it would put virtual things on top of the real world, so you're not completely isolated like you would be with virtual reality. Magic Leap says it will release its system to developers sometime this year. It features glasses, a small Discman sized computer that can attach to your belt, and a controller.

Magic Leap just raised half a billion dollars more for this from Saudi Arabia. They got 502 million dollars in October, and have received more than 2.3 billion dollars in funding so far from a variety of investors.

With Ready Player One set to come out later this year, Leo says there are a ton of virtual reality exhibitions at the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival this week in Austin. Leo also saw a mockup WestWorld outside of Austin. Tickets sold out in minutes.

According to a new study, the more outrageous fake news tweets you see on Twitter, the more likely it will be retweeted, while actual news only gets retweeted about 1/4 of the time. Leo says that this is driving many to give up the social media app altogether. And those who have stayed, Leo says it works as an outrage engine to rage at the machine.